Stratics VeteranStratics Legend

And I certainly am not trying to put my own career on some sort of game design high ground. While I have hit occasional home runs, I have made plenty of unforced errors. I was not attempting to prop myself up with these comments, but rather lament my need...our industry’s need for proper training in the most important skill required to make a good game. I never had any formal training either; I have just had more time to learn from my mistakes than most. If what comes from all this is a frank discussion and lively debate on how to best address this issue, then hopefully I’ve accomplished something.

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A+.

Haha. But it's true, really. Anyone who tries to do EVERYTHING is going to either A) Know the most about game design, B) Go crazy.

In my own universe I am sure RG is a lot like Kobe Bryant, a passionate competitor who wants the best talent around him.

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And I certainly am not trying to put my own career on some sort of game design high ground. While I have hit occasional home runs,

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Please tell me what other home run he hit besides Untima. Talk about someone trying to blow his own horn. One home run and the rest strile outs, if I was a MLB owener he would be gone and I don't mean sent to the minors either.

Stratics VeteranStratics Legend

Well, I'm a game designer and I agree to some extent. My company hired and fired 5 game designers before they finally let me (fresh out of school) become lead game designer. They hired these other guys, often for very high salaries, who really just sucked. No math skills, no system design skills, and so on. These people had no idea what could be programmed or not, and no idea that what they asked of the art team and engine was unfeasable. They just had some leadership skills, social skills and good presentation skills (which is probably the reason they were hired in the first place). Since my social skills aren't so awesome, I often got the blame for the stuff they messed up, while they took my work and presented it as their own.

I feel that really good designers, not just me but also the other good designer I know, never really get a chance to produce the games they want. With the company, we've been looking for an investor for 2 years to make a sandbox RPG/Strategy game. No investor found. While the company next door promised they'd release a Farmville clone, an Ikariam clone, an OGame clone and a fourth nondescript game and got 5 million in investments in weeks. Of course all those games failed, but investors ONLY invest in "proven" game concepts (aka a direct copy of an existing game that has 'proven' to work). That's why you see so many farmvilles and so many world of warcraft clones and so few new innovative game concepts.

So you think we should go to kickstarter? Think again, we've been there and failed miserably (10k out of 85k). The press wouldn't report on us so no-one donated. Kickstarter is only going to work if you've got succesful developers on board that worked on Halo/Diablo and have 10 other AAA games in their portfolio.

Since there has been little income from the game studio, I've been looking for another job, but the only companies that consider hiring me are those 1001 online webgame portals where I can work on creating the next Evony or Lords and Knights clone.

Please tell me what other home run he hit besides Untima. Talk about someone trying to blow his own horn. One home run and the rest strile outs, if I was a MLB owener he would be gone and I don't mean sent to the minors either.

Stratics VeteranStratics Legend

Please tell me what other home run he hit besides Untima. Talk about someone trying to blow his own horn. One home run and the rest strile outs, if I was a MLB owener he would be gone and I don't mean sent to the minors either.

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A number of the Ultima titles were pretty groundbreaking. In my gaming "life" or whatever people call it they were U7 and UO. U7 remains to this day one of the finest RPGs I have ever played (and I have played a lot). And UO - well I don't need to explain that one.

I never played Tabula whatsit and never had any interest. SotA I am not sure about but it has some nice new ideas so I am intrigued.

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Richard Garriott is a design genius, a real living legend of video game design. His work has literally appeared in museums. It's silly to say he is tooting his own horn. He created his place more less than earned it, and now has to peel back and find his place once again in a modern market. There will be bumps along the road. Tabula Rasa, was, conceptually, a great game.

That said, it's impossible for me to look at SotA's pre-Alpha build and say, "That looks good." From what RG has talked about I feel like the game will be good, but we need to see some solid proof. I'm seeing a lot of the same old same old so far, starting with "pre-order and win" in-game content and the threat of limited housing. Say what you will about EA, but I'd rather see a stable Alpha build and a list of features than invest in a pre-Alpha mock-up. God bless all of those whom have spent an accumulative $1 million-plus on RG's project, but come on.

I feel as if Will Wright is probably the most popular video game designer of our time. I used to play Sim Ant, Sim Farm, Sim City, and Sim Copter all the time. I'm not too familiar with Peter Molyneux, but I would definitely add Shigeru Miyamoto to the list of best video game designers, as well as Square's "Dream Team." But without consequence expert RG there's no option of whether to leave or take the lunch in Chrono Trigger and you certainly don't have all the relationship consequences and game-changing choices to be found in the Dragon Age series.

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I feel that really good designers, not just me but also the other good designer I know, never really get a chance to produce the games they want. With the company, we've been looking for an investor for 2 years to make a sandbox RPG/Strategy game. No investor found. While the company next door promised they'd release a Farmville clone, an Ikariam clone, an OGame clone and a fourth nondescript game and got 5 million in investments in weeks. Of course all those games failed, but investors ONLY invest in "proven" game concepts (aka a direct copy of an existing game that has 'proven' to work). That's why you see so many farmvilles and so many world of warcraft clones and so few new innovative game concepts.

So you think we should go to kickstarter? Think again, we've been there and failed miserably (10k out of 85k). The press wouldn't report on us so no-one donated. Kickstarter is only going to work if you've got succesful developers on board that worked on Halo/Diablo and have 10 other AAA games in their portfolio.

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I really like your post and it sounds like the type of person your company was hiring as a lead designer was not really qualified for the job.... However I will say that your company sounds like its having trouble selling and presenting its ideas or at least in a way that can generate the money/interest/exposure you want.

That is where those dynamic personality types can help your company and rather then a lead designer, its a dynamic producer you need.

RG just got a million dollars in donations in less then a week, selling promises of a game that is only in concept for a free future download and an ingame title... drop 10k and you get a virtual city house or go buy a car in RL?

But it worked... yes he has a reputation but RG has always done a great job of selling his vision and communicating it to a broad audience which unfailingly generates a great deal of interest in anything he is doing (both succeesful and not). In my opinion he has delievered many more times then not and excels when he has intellectual freedom and flexibilty to pursue his vision.

I have not "invested" in Shroud of the Avatar but that is ONLY because my love for gaming is in MMRPG and right now the only place (and the only place I have really ventured in 15 years) is UO. I say MMRPG because that is what it was built to be, before the term MMO even exsisted. When RG talks about storytelling and changing the way games are told which in turn changes the experience of how they are played - that to me is the next evolution in gaming.

EA laughed off the fact that RG was in talks with them about perhaps moving forward together with a UO2.... EA keep laughing because a million dollars that could have been in your shared pockets is completely out of your revenue stream. As players we should be pissed as hell.... What should be a unified franchise with backing, support and community has become a frayed mess. As a playerbase we are being forced to pick between which ultima we are backing because in the end our time and resources are limited.

In an ideal world, EA and the team RG has assembled would sit down and say..... " Ultima online is a great game, which has carried the Ultima vision for the past 15 years but as technology has progressed the game has transitioned into a period of maintenance rather progression and expansion (The game was coded for dialup Pentium 100's and VHS . We need a new vision for UO and its sounds like you have great ideas from what we are seeing out of Shroud of the Avatar... Lets find a way to move UO and the Ultima franchise forward together, and bring the loyal UO fan base into the future while introducing a new generation of players to the ultima universe.

Sure there are control issues, politics, and ego's and getting them all on the same page is hard but not impossible as its been done before. I'd love to see everyone put that crap aside, learn from the mistakes of the past and give us the game the loyal ultima fanbase wants and deserves - a merger between UO and the ideals behind Shroud to produce a new MMRPG for the Ultima Universe that will carry on the legacy for another 15-20 years.

If Kickstarted proved anything, its that there is still a market out there for this type of innovative developement and game design.

-Lore's Player

PS: If you ask me where it starts its not technology, its not code, but story.

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Call it a mancrush or any other idiotic name. I call it respect. That guy created an entire genre,not just a game. Sure he`s had failures but who hasn`t. I would LOVE to see how UO could have flourished under his control instead of the corporate ridiculousness that is UO today.

I think the whole kickstarter thing is a means to gauge interest, god knows he does not need the money. So why would he continue to build something that didn`t draw the masses. Now he/they know it most certainly will draw the masses. Its way to early to know what the end product will be,but I am sure it will be a contender for today`s MMO`s that are basically just a reskin of others. Same UI,Same mechanics,same BS. Doesn`t matter if ya like him or not,the fact that your still playing something that he created 15+ years ago says everything.

I will put alot more stock into his game and its longevity than I ever will with EA and its distorted vision of what UO2 (uo forever) should be, or anything EA for that matter.

I hope he does great and the game rocks. Nothing would please me more than to stop giving an undeserving company like EA my money.

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There were only 10 of the $10k level options, and they had more than just a house in SotA, but a laundry list of real life activities such as meeting with the SotA dev team and sitting in a meeting or two, touring Britannia Manor with Lord British and a physical original copy of Akalabeth (worth quite a chunk of change as a collectible).

Also the Kickstarter was more of a way to get a bit of extra backing so that they could self-publish rather than being stuck going through EA, Activision, etc etc.

There have been quite a number of interviews done since the project was formally announced, I think it might be helpful if a few peope would take the time to watch and listen (or read transcripts) so that they understand what's going on rather than shooting off at the hip based on a sensationalized PC Gamer article.

Please tell me what other home run he hit besides Untima. Talk about someone trying to blow his own horn. One home run and the rest strile outs, if I was a MLB owener he would be gone and I don't mean sent to the minors either.

Stratics VeteranStratics Legend

Oops, yeah I added the extra 10 they released after the first 10 sold out, my bad. Currently at 12/20 right now (the first 10 sold out on first day and featured an original copy of Akalabeth, and I don't think the next 10 do).

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LB's work has been the Ultima franchise, which of course means that in a de-facto manner he created the CRPG genre, created the first mainstream games that did NOT follow the same pattern that RPGs in general followed, his work basically gives rise to the fact that if you're playing a CRPG, you're really playing Ultima, he put the MMOG genre on the map with UO.

From that point he's spent 30 years in the industry watching it grow, watching what other developers have done, what large companies like EA have done with smaller development houses, and took some time off to do a few personal endeavors.

It's about like demanding that Michael Jordan have been good at something other than basketball when deciding to pick him for your pickup basketball team. He tried baseball, he sucked at it, but you know what, if you DON'T pick him for your pickup basketball team you're a farking idiot.

My comparison above shows that LB's best work are groundbreaking titles that HAPPEN TO BE an Ultima while being in charge of the company producing it. His worst work also HAPPEN TO BE Ultimas (and Tabula Rasa) done when a larger company was telling him and his team what they had to produce.

Now he's on his own, yes he still has to prove that SotA is going to be a breakthrough game, but so far, I'm liking what I'm reading and hearing, so I'm willing to take the risk and give him that chance.

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Please tell me what other home run he hit besides Ultima. Talk about someone trying to blow his own horn. One home run and the rest strile outs, if I was a MLB owener he would be gone and I don't mean sent to the minors either.

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Ultima is a large series, you can't simply knock it off as one little achievement. It's not just one home run, it's several home runs. Just because his other works outside of the Ultima series aren't as popular he shouldn't be so quickly disregarded.

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I realize this is kinda off-topic, appologies. I'd like to know few basic things about this project:

1. Is Shroud of Avatar going to be a PC game, or is it designed to also run on some multiplatform mobile iDerp tablets or Facebook and whatnots?
2. Is it going to be an MMO? Persistant world?

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1. PC although it may be ported to other systems such as tablets and Macs. It's using Unity which allows for easy cross platform development. However, RG has stated specifically that it's PC first (unlike U4E which ended up being iMess first)

2. It's a bit different. The world itself is going to be persistent, but you can play it in several different modes. The storyline will be a single-player based game that you can choose to play completely offline, DRM-free. If you want to play in the persistent world, then you can set the Options from Single Player Online (you won't see any other players, but you will see the changes to the map, cities, etc) to Friends Only Online (The game will build a friends list based on whatever criteria you allow it access... manual input, Facebook, email, Twitter, etc) to Open Online (where the game will first select your friends as previously stated, then will select people you may not know based on the areas and quests you are in).

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Thanks for clearing it up. It doesn't sound much like the game I'd like it to be (= UO2!) but that is not to say it couldn't be a grand game. I'm greatly bothered by the possibility the devs have to consider hardware and controller-related restrictions of various mobile gadgets though.

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